The Bloodlust

Willow Graves was taken from her mother when she was ten years old during what was now known as the “separation”. It was a time when the government came in and ripped thousands of children away from their parents in an attempt to “ensure the future of the human race”. The virus had taken everything from them and now the government was taking what was left of their families. They put the children into camps based on their age range. They were guarded closely day and night. It made no difference though, the virus caused a chemical change in the human mind. It drove them mad with rage and a bloodlust that could never be satisfied. When the virus eventually found them, the children were defenseless to it and many of them died quickly. Cities had been bombed to destroy the creatures the virus had turned humans into and now many places were too radioactive for survivors to go near. The creatures still lurked, adapting mutations because of the chemicals the military had rained from the sky in an effort to kill them. They were built for this wasteland, built to hunt and rule it.

Sixteen years after the separation, Willow wandered the wasteland alone. Whoever was left of the human race had joined violent gangs and set up territories to control. Control of the wasteland was the top currency these days. Willow belonged to no one, she preferred to be alone. She knew that everyone died eventually and if she had no attachments to anyone, it wouldn’t hurt when they were taken from her. One person can only experience so much loss before they lose themselves and she was at her breaking point. This was the thought that was in her mind as she watched three members of the Bone Crew drag an unconscious teenager through the demolished streets of what used to be downtown Austin. Rubble crunched loudly under their heavy footfalls as they laughed carelessly to themselves, bragging about all of the indescribable things they could do to the unconscious girl before taking her to the leader of their gang. Willow’s stomach turned at the thought of their grimy hands on her. She knew she had to save the girl from them. Willow clutched the locket hanging from her neck and shoved it deep into the layers of clothing she wore. She pulled her black hood over her head in hope of disguising her stark red hair. If the Bone Crew couldn’t tell who attacked them, they wouldn’t know who to come after but she didn’t plan to get close enough for them to see her face.

Willow silently pulled an arrow from the sheath attached to her back and threaded it into her bow. Her aim was quick and true and the arrow found a home at the base of one of the Bone Crew member’s skull. The man went down quickly and before the other two could react to their fallen comrade, another arrow made its home in the second member’s neck. The third man turned suddenly, dropping the girl he had been holding and drawing an axe from its place at his hip. He bellowed into the empty streets, “Show yourself!” They were the last words he ever spoke. The third arrow made its way into his eye socket and a scream choked out from his lungs before the world went quiet again. The noise was enough to alert nearby mutants and Willow knew she needed to move quickly to avoid them finding her here. Humans were easy to kill but mutants took effort. She ran to the bodies of the Bone Crew members and collected her arrows, materials were hard to come by these days to leave them behind. She searched their lifeless bodies quickly, tucking the weapons into different holsters she carried on her and pulled the girl’s arm around her shoulder. She was heavier than Willow first assumed she would be, a sign that she was well fed. This made dragging her body to a safe area more challenging than Willow would have liked, but what choice did she really have?

Willow’s makeshift home was not far from Bone Crew territory and it didn’t take long before she arrived. The building was once a bakery of some sort and the only building on the block with its windows still intact. Willow had found the keys inside once when she was scavenging for leftover food and had since decided to reside in the shop. The idea was that if she could lock the doors, the only way in was through the front windows of the shop. If they were broken, Willow would know it wasn’t safe to enter. Today the windows still stood so she pulled the keys from her front pocket and let herself in. She poured the girl she carried into one of the old red booths that was still in pretty good shape. The girl stirred to life as the cold leather touched her skin and Willow took a seat in a chair across from her. The sun was setting quickly, a sign that winter was approaching, and the bakery was falling into a warm orange glow. The girl rubbed her eyes and pulled herself into a sitting position.

“Where am I?” She yawned.

Willow took notice for the first time of how clean the girl was. Her white shirt was almost completely devoid of dirt and her hair smooth and fluffy as if it was freshly washed. This raised alarm bells in Willow’s mind.

“You’re safe.” Willow spoke quietly. Her voice hoarse from months of silence.

The girl looked around quickly and the faintest smell of flowers came off of her body. It made Willow suddenly self conscious of her own smell, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a shower or anything that could be compared to a bath. There was no point anymore and resources like fresh clean water were too precious to waste on bathing.

“How did I get here?” she demanded, shrinking against the leather of the booth.

“I carried you.”

“Why?” her eyes narrowed. The suspicion of other humans was normal. Everyone had it, even in the gangs. People don’t just help other people without an agenda of their own.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Willow asked softly.

The girl rubbed at a white plastic bracelet on her wrist absently before she began, “I was at the institute and someone broke in. The lights went out and someone grabbed me…” her voice trailed off, “and now I’m here.”

The Institute was a sort of legend around the wasteland. There were rumors about walls that kept out mutations, running water, electricity, and experiments. But Willow had never seen it with her own eyes and neither had many of the people who liked to believe it was real. She’d always chalked it up to a fantasy. But here was this girl who was clean and washed and saying it was real! Hope fluttered through Willow for the first time in as long as she could remember. She pushed herself out of her chair and walked forward silently, more out of habit than anything, startling the girl in the booth. She was a small girl with blonde hair that almost seemed white, it flowed around her shoulders in waves and she hid her face behind it.

“The Institute is real?” She breathed almost inaudibly.

It was suddenly clear to the girl that Willow had not been the one who’d broken in and taken her from the only home she had ever known and she visibly relaxed, nodding her answer. Willow sucked in a sharp breath, her mind racing with the possibility of it all.

The girl leaned forward and if Willow hadn’t been as close to her as she was right then, she wouldn’t have heard her words, “We can’t get sick there...they injected us with a vaccine...we can’t get the virus. If you help me get back, they can cure you, too.”

Willow’s heart slammed against her rib cage. A cure! Willow sat next to the girl in the booth and took her hands.

“Tell me where it is.” was all she said.

It took six days to get to the Institute and the entire time the girl, April, chattered away incessantly about the luxuries the Institute had to offer. The only thing Willow cared about was the cure so she endured the talking. Great grey concrete walls rose up before them as they approached the safety of the Institute. A heavily armed guard at the entrance scanned the white bracelet that April had on her wrist and allowed the two girls to pass through. It was the first time Willow had seen a gun since the separation, ammunition was too difficult to come by so most people living in the wasteland used melee weapons. April took her through many different hallways with clean white floors and walls until they finally came to a stop in front of a set of white doors with no windows on them. A man stood outside in a white coat and smiled as April approached.

“You must be Willow.” he smiled, “Your reputation precedes you in the wasteland. Many of the gangs fear you. Are you here for the cure?”

Willow nodded as April began to explain things to him about their journey to get there. She put her hand on the small of Willow’s back, “Once you go through these doors you need to change into the white gown they’ve laid out for you, leave your old clothing and weapons to the side and I’ll collect them for you so you can have them back after your vaccination.” She had a friendly smile on her face and Willow thought that finally she’d found someone she could trust. Willow nodded to her and pushed through the doors. There was an operating table in the middle of the room and a chair along the wall that had a white gown folded neatly on it. Willow did as instructed and removed her clothing and weapons laying them down on the chair where the gown had been. Once she was dressed a voice came through speakers on the walls instructing her to lay down on the table so they may come in and give her the injection. Willow clutched the gold locket at her neck, the only article of clothing she couldn’t bring herself to remove. She laid down on the table with her arms at her side when April and three others dressed in white coats came into the room. April smiled at her and pulled restraints from under the table.

“These are just a precaution, some people jump as a reflex and we don’t want you to hurt one of our doctors by accident” April said sweetly.

Willow nodded her understanding but something didn’t feel right. April and the doctors restrained her wrists and ankles quickly before one of them injected her shoulder with the purple liquid they said was the cure. Her eyes felt heavy and her mouth suddenly went dry before everything went dark. April’s smile faded from her face almost immediately and she reached out to remove the gold locket from Willow’s throat.

“You did good.” Philip praised, sliding the needle back into his coat pocket, “She’ll make a fine mutant. Her blood lust will be like no other and I’ll bet she takes out many of the other gangs before someone ever takes her down. Weaponizing her to defend the institute was genius.”

April smiled proudly at herself, “It was as easy as leading a pig to the slaughter.” she laughed, fastening the gold locket around her own throat as a keepsake for a job well done.